The list of “notorious markets” published by the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) office lacked sufficient evidence and the assessment was rejected by the Chinese government, said Director of the Department of Treaty and Law, the Ministry of Commerce, Mr. Li Chenggang, on a press conference of the Fourth Session of the Eleventh National People’s Congress.

However, they did inappropriately and negatively affect the reputation of the related companies, and MOFCOM would give close attention to the development of the situation, added Mr. Li. USTR recently released its annual list of over 30 so-called notorious Internet and physical markets for counterfeit and pirated goods, and such Chinese companies as Baidu, Taobao, Silk Street and Yiwu China Commodity Market, etc. were included.

The root cause for the “notorious markets” was the power and internationalization o f Chinese companies, which somewhat frightened their American counterparts and resulted in the latter’s “self defense”, said Mr. Bai Ming, Deputy Director of the International Market Research Division, Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, MOFCOM.